Matt McGuire - Dark Dawn

Inside, a dark oak counter stretched the length of the bar. Black and white tiles covered the floor and a row of optics glistened with amber vials of whiskey — Black Bush, Paddy’s, Dunhill’s.

Lynch ordered a pint of Guinness and took it to a booth along the wall. From there he could sit quietly, inconspicuous. He could also look out across the whole room, an old habit, but one he never felt like changing, and especially not now.

He had hoped that a bit of normality, a few pints, might help reset the body clock. Failing that, it would at least give the sleeping pills a hand. He remembered Marie-Therese from a couple of mornings back: ‘Try gin.’ He smiled, thinking about her attitude, a two fingers to life and whatever it threw at you. She was just right. On the way to The George he’d walked past her house and considered asking her out for a drink. It was too blatant though. It needed to be something casual, to look spontaneous. During the day, that was the way to go. A cup of coffee. Just talking. No obvious subtext.

Every few minutes the snug at the back of the bar erupted in shouting and roars of laughter. There was a group of men and by the sound of it they were well on their way. Lynch looked round the bar, recognizing a number of faces from the Markets. The old man with the Jack Russell had nodded as he had walked in. Lynch liked seeing him, liked the thought of him and his dog, doing everything together. That was loyalty. Real loyalty. The dog never left his side. Right then it was curled up at the foot of his bar stool.

At the back of the pub the snug let out another roar. Lynch looked round. The group were hidden by the glass partition that topped the seats. He couldn’t make out any faces. He couldn’t make out Sean Molloy, busy holding court. He couldn’t make out Johnny Tierney, banging his empty glass down, ordering someone to get a round in. The rest of the pub were oblivious, or were acting that way. See no evil, hear no evil. Lynch could tell from the fake indifference that whoever was back there had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. No one was going to say boo to them.

He was about to get up and leave when a half-drunk pint appeared beside him. It was the dog man. The wee Jack Russell trotted over after him.

‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Work away.’

The old man groaned as he shifted into the seat. He introduced himself with a wheezing, raspy voice. Arthur McNally. He was five foot nothing and well into his seventies. He motioned to the dog.

‘Sit down there, Sammy.’ He turned to Lynch. ‘Has me run ragged, this boy. It’s like he gets younger, every year I get older.’

Wee Arthur was a talker, which suited Lynch fine. He was more than happy listening. It was good to sit there, soaking up someone else’s thoughts instead of suffocating in your own. The old man ranged round, talking about the football, how Cliftonville were rubbish, again, and all the building work that was going on round the town. He hardly recognized Belfast any more. Lynch asked him when the pub round the corner, The Kitchen, had disappeared. For ten minutes they added to the rumble of conversation rolling round the pub. Lynch went to buy himself another pint and got one in for his new friend, making a joke about Care in the Community.

As the barman put the drinks in front of him, a glass shattered inside the snug. In unison the bar turned its head, expecting fireworks. A burst of laughter erupted from the corner. It was only a spilled drink. The bar settled again and Lynch returned to his seat. Arthur lowered his voice and nodded towards the back of the pub.

‘Hallions. The lot of them.’

When he finished his drink Lynch made his excuses and got up to leave. As he backed out of the snug he bumped into someone.

‘Sorry there. .’

He turned to see six foot two inches of Sean Molloy staring down at him. Molloy stood with four men at his back, on their way out of the bar. He looked at Lynch, backing him up against the table. The room was silent, glasses hung in the air, halfway towards gaping mouths. Molloy spoke with menacing quiet.

‘If it isn’t Joe Lynch. The big hero. Out walking amongst us.’ He pushed Lynch in the shoulder with his finger. ‘If I was you, Lynch, I’d take a bit more care where I was stepping. These aren’t the good old days any more.’

Lynch knew about Molloy’s reputation. He was one of Gerry McCann’s boys and could handle himself. That wasn’t the worry. It was the four others that stood behind him. One more Lynch could handle, probably not two, and definitely not four. It didn’t matter who you were, four to one were pretty lousy odds.

No one in the bar moved.

Lynch looked at Molloy. It would be one punch and a run for the door. You would make it or you wouldn’t. The rest would look after itself. Lynch braced himself, ready to throw. At the same moment Johnny Tierney stepped forward and jostled Molloy along.

‘Come on, big lad,’ he said, slapping his mate on the back. ‘The birds are waiting. This one’ll keep. He’s not going anywhere.’

Molloy stepped back from the edge. The five men made their way out of the bar, Tierney smirking back at Lynch. Conversations resumed as the doors swung shut behind them. Lynch took his seat, making sure he could see the door, just in case. He looked at his empty pint. At his side, Arthur petted his dog and muttered to himself, under his breath.

‘Hallions, the lot of them.’

Ward gave it a poke down the middle with a three wood. Two hundred yards away the ball skipped over a ridge and disappeared out of sight. He’d always thought the first wasn’t the same, after they had filled in the bunker on the right-hand side of the fairway.

It was 7 a.m. and Fortwilliam golf course was deserted. Ward’s navy Mondeo sat alone in the car park. The fairways sloped along the side of Cavehill and down to Belfast Lough. The grass runway of the first shimmered silver with early-morning dew. This was Ward’s ritual. Nine holes of golf, early doors, while the world was still in its bed. He used an old, rusty set of clubs that had belonged to his father, and always played alone.

The day before, he had sat for three hours in a divisional meeting. Wilson gave a presentation on the last quarter’s crime stats for East and South Belfast. Slide after slide, he broke down call rates, arrest figures, charges brought. Each column totalled to a nice neat percentage. Policing by numbers. Round the table, the senior management of Musgrave Street nodded in agreement. You couldn’t blame them, Ward thought. The measurement, the neatness, the accountability. If he worked on the third floor and never left the station, he’d probably like to see something so neat and tidy.

Ward had sat in the meeting, staring at graphs and tables, wondering when policing had become a form of accountancy. Digging out his old notebooks, looking for Spender, had brought back memories from when he’d first joined up. He found himself reading over various incidents he’d attended. Detail after detail rose up within him — faces, names, charges; injuries, victims, suspects; blood spatters, registration plates, street addresses. Ward remembered his first ever Sergeant, Stanley Hannah. Hannah was in his late fifties, six two and built like a bear. He had been at Dunkirk and Normandy. It was an unwritten rule at Musgrave Street, every new man got six weeks with the Sarge. You rode together, twelve hours a day, Hannah conducting lessons on the art of policework. They would sit in the car, or walk the street. The Sergeant would ask — What do you see? What’s he doing over there? What kind of car’s behind you? How long has it been there? Hannah taught Ward — you watch, you listen, you remember. That was the job. You didn’t police with your fists and your boot. At least not when you could help it. In the early eighties things started to heat up and Hannah warned him, ‘This thing’s going to get a whole lot worse, before it gets any better.’